Cursed ✔️

99. The Encounter

"What the heck could this mean?" Alex asked confused but Emily knew exactly what George meant to say.

"The misery that Nick and Clyde brought back," Emily began, "was the stone." Emily turned to face Clyde, "Remember you told us that you and Nick took the stone from his old house but then it disappeared the third night?"

Clyde nodded.

"Then what does this word, 'HAZE' mean?" Alex asked going through the letter once again.

"Do you two know anything about it?" Emily asked Helena and Ryan thinking that maybe since they both were his friends, they could know something but the only response that they gave her was shaking their heads.

"We are really close to finding the final piece, I knew it!" Alex folded back the letter as she searched the box again in the hope to find something else.

"Yeah," Clyde looked at Alex who was searching the box but got nothing, "now the only thing that is in our way is the mystery of 'HAZE'."

"Did you ever hear George saying this word before?" Emily looked at Helena and Ryan. But again, they both looked at each other and then shook their heads. "C'mon guys, think harder. George wouldn't just write a word so random at the bottom of his letter. It has to mean something."

The room was filled with five brains working together to solve the meaning behind 'HAZE'.

"It doesn't even relate to or makes any link to anything in his letter. " Alex replied sitting on the bed. "It was super random for him to write it."

"Guys!"Emily exclaimed which made everyone look at her. "Think about it, anyone who wrote a note or a letter to include such a random word or even a phrase which has no meaning to it among all the other words makes no sense at first when you read it. Maybe it was meant to be that way."

"What are you suggesting?" Helena asked looking lost.

"Maybe we don't have to relate it with the letter," Emily continued, "Maybe it doesn't even relate with anything. Maybe we are looking at it the wrong way."

"Ok, you are confusing me now," Alex opened the letter again and began to scan it.

"What I'm saying is that," Emily began to explain, "maybe we think that George put the word in his letter for no reason or super random, as it doesn't even mean anything when you look at his letter, but maybe when you look at the word separately, it could mean something. I mean why would George end his letter with such a random word out of nowhere? Something tells me that George had put the word there for some reason."

"What if," Clyde said looking as if an idea - a jackpot - hit him. " 'HAZE' is not a word? What if 'HAZE' is a code?"

"A code to what?" Ryan was intrigued.

"If 'HAZE' is a code to something or someone," Emily replied, "a person that writes or talks in code could only do that if they had done it before too." Emily looked at Ryan and Helena and asked, "Think guys, do George used to talk in codes or love to use code words?"

"Not specifically that I could remember," Ryan replied thinking hard. "He never talked with me in code words and we never had our secret language."

"What about you, Helena?" Emily's eyes looked into Helena's. She could clearly see her mind playing all footage she had of George - a trip down the memory lane.

Emily was just about to turn away feeling lost again when Helena's voice gave her a ray of hope. " It's true what Ryan said though. George never talked or wrote many codes before. But yes, I remember something - he used to love a good mystery and maths."